Grieving Nepalis observed the traditional Hindu last day of mourning on Monday for the more than 1,380 people killed in a catastrophic mudslide that occurred along the country's border with China. Search operations are ongoing, with four survivors rescued in recent days.
Government offices in Nepal and at its missions abroad are flying the national flag at half-mast to mark the 13th day after death, a period considered the final day of mourning by the faithful, who commemorate it with rituals and food offerings. However, wider government-organized events have been postponed as search and rescue operations continue.
The disaster struck on August 26, when a large wall of mud and rock, dislodged by a breaking glacier, collapsed into a river on the Himalayan border of Nepal and China's Tibet. The deluge washed away towns and villages, burying roads and highways under debris.
At least 1,380 people have been confirmed dead, and more than 5,500 remain missing. Among the recent rescues were four individuals, including a Chinese national pulled from a tunnel on Saturday. Two hydropower workers were rescued from another tunnel on Friday, and a Nepali woman was recovered from her buried house on Saturday.
Search teams are concentrating their efforts on hydropower stations in the affected region, where authorities believe survivors might still be trapped. The Nepalese Army is involved in these operations.
In Tibet, Chinese officials reported recovering 12 more bodies on Sunday as the search continued for hundreds missing in the region.
President Ram Chandra Paudel, the ceremonial head of state, was touring flood-hit areas on Monday to survey the damage. In a separate development, security personnel at the district jail in Nuwakot, one of the two worst-affected districts, transferred 923 prisoners to a higher location before floodwaters inundated their low-lying facility. Authorities also apprehended 50 prisoners who had escaped after the prison walls and gates were breached by the floodwaters.